Already with some rough history in Los Angeles, the Arizona Wildcats might be adding some pretty bad timing this season.
On Thursday at USC, Arizona will face a team that is skidding off the NCAA Tournament bubble, having lost five of its past seven games while a flu-like bug spread affected the Trojans in losses at Colorado and Utah last weekend.
While it isn’t known if the Trojans will be healthy by Thursday, they undoubtedly will be desperate. Arizona represents the Trojans’ last chance to get a Quadrant 1 win in the regular season unless ASU (41) rises into the Top 25 NET rankings.
Then on Saturday at UCLA, Arizona will face one of the Pac-12’s two crazy-hot teams — first-place ASU being the other — and the same team that beat them 65-52 at McKale Center on Feb. 8.
Since that win, UCLA has won an additional four straight, including a road sweep of the mountain schools over the weekend that put the Bruins in the four-way loss-column tie for second place in the Pac-12.
So to sum it up: There’s motivation everywhere at USC, and momentum everywhere at UCLA.
“You know what?” UA coach Sean Miller said after Arizona lost to Oregon 73-72 on Saturday. “We have two tougher games in L.A. UCLA has a chance to win the conference and USC is a talented group, and they’re playing for the tournament.”
USC actually was in the tournament projections solidly until February hit, then it lost a home game to Colorado, was swept in Arizona and, after beating Washington and Washington State at home, took a miserable trip through the Rockies.
Not only did USC lose 70-66 at Colorado and then 79-65 at Utah, but a flu-like bug hit starters Nick Rakocevic and Jonah Mathews especially hard.
Arizona forward Stone Gettings (13) has some high fives for the court side crowd after the Wildcats force an Oregon turnover late in the second half of their Pac12 game at McKale Center, February 22, 2020 Tucson, Ariz.
Some of the Trojans were so sick they also threw up on the team flight home from Salt Lake City.
That was on top of a sprained ankle that hobbled forward Isaiah Mobley and a concussion that threw off Onyeka Okongwu’s conditioning. The father of reserve guard Kyle Sturdivant recently died, too.
“I’m tired,” Okongwu told the Los Angeles Times after the Utah game.
“Isaiah’s ankle is hurt. Nick and Jonah are sick. Kyle is with his family. I’m not trying to make excuses. We still could’ve played harder and come out stronger.”
But the Trojans have a path for redemption, and it starts with Arizona. USC won’t have to play any more road games during the regular season, hosting UA, ASU and UCLA at the Galen Center.
“If we win those three games,” point guard Ethan Anderson told the Times, “then all will be well.”
UCLA, meanwhile, is beginning to look unstoppable after coming back from a nine-point deficit at high altitude to upset then-first-place Colorado in Boulder, 70-63 on Saturday.
While the Bruins’ buy-in to the defensive mentality of first-year coach Mick Cronin has already been well-established, this time UCLA also threw in some pretty efficient offense thanks to point guard Tyger Campbell.
UCLA shot 49.1% while Campbell had 11 assists to just one turnover while also scoring 15 points on 5-for-10 shooting.
UCLA guard Tyger Campbell, right, drives to the rim in the Bruins’ win at Colorado on Saturday. After a rough start to the season, UCLA is right in the mix in the Pac-12.
The effort earned Campbell the Pac-12’s Freshman of the Week award — Oregon’s Payton Pritchard predictably won overall Player of the Week after dropping 38 on Arizona — and moved UCLA to the group of four tied for second in the loss column with five losses.
That’s a pretty drastic contrast to the UCLA team that went 7-6 in nonconference play, losing by 10 at home to Hofstra and losing three of its first four Pac-12 games.
“It makes me realize how fragile it all is because you start reverting back (to the early season) but I’m happy for the kids,” Cronin told the Times. “When you’re trying to build your program and you preach certain things and then they do it and then it’s reinforced with victory and then players are playing well — so they look better — then theoretically they’re going to listen to you.”
Despite all that, Arizona does have some motivation of its own.
Not only does half of the Wildcats’ 10-man active roster have ties to Southern California, where UA is 2-4 over its past three Pac-12 road trips, but the Wildcats need to finish strong in order to avoid playing a first-round conference tournament game and slipping well below preferential treatment by the NCAA tournament selection committee.
Arizona remained strong in the computer rankings Monday because of its close loss to 14th-ranked Oregon — the Wildcats are No. 8 in the NET and No. 13 in Kenpom — but they dropped out of the AP Top 25 once again, having jumped in and out on alternating weeks since Jan. 13.
Bracket projections at both ESPN and CBS have the Wildcats starting the NCAA Tournament in pods far outside the Pac-12 footprint: CBS has UA a No. 7 in the Midwest, starting in Greensboro, North Carolina, while ESPN has them as a No. 6 in the South, starting in Albany, New York.
